The Internet is a huge virtual space, made up of contents of many different types hosted in good websites and bad websites. Most of the network's dangers come from the Internet in the form of scams, deception, malware and viruses and reprehensible content.
The most important advice given to the youngest and least experienced on the web is not to click at random on any flashing writing or on any link that bears the word "free" or "download".
The more experienced ones recognize on the fly a suspicious link or a site that, in an undue way, makes unjustified requests.
Behind every suspicious link could lurk the attack of a malware, a file virus, a data collection for advertising purposes and so on.
A recent example of an online scam is the italia-programmi.net site which requires a more than suspicious registration with a telephone number and home address only to download free programs and often also open source, that is, free from licenses of which it has no ownership.
After downloading Italy-programs, send a payment request, it is not clear for what.
To avoid clicking on suspicious links and going to bad sites, you can protect yourself by installing a browser plugin that evaluates the reputation of each website.
READ ALSO: Block adware downloads and always download from real links
Some antivirus like Avast and AVG have the functionality of Link Scanner that allows you to warn the user about dangerous links and sites not to open.
However, the best program to have a more precise assessment, to avoid false reports of dangers and to obtain updated information and reviews is WOT .
WOT (Web Of Trust) is the most valid and reliable site for obtaining, in real time, information on the quality of a site from the point of view of safety and also from the point of view of reliability.
For example, a site like Italia-programs does not distribute any viruses from a technical point of view, only that the business model is completely deceptive and based on the undue sale of free content.
So by visiting italia-programmi.net with the WOT plugin you can see how the scores are at minimum values and the site is considered dangerous.
WOT bases the evaluation on 4 parameters:
- Trustworthiness ;
- Reliability of the supplier ;
- Confidentiality ;
- Safety for children .
WOT scores are an average of the ratings given by the same users who installed and use the plugin.
In fact, for each site you browse, you can open a quick menu, give a quality score and, if you want, also write a feedback comment.
WOT works automatically on Internet Explorer, Opera, Chrome, Firefox and Safari while, on other browsers it can be installed as a Bookmarklet for manual control.
In searches with Google, Web Of Trust makes a red, yellow or green symbol appear to indicate the reliability of the web page found.
Furthermore, if you click on a link that is considered dangerous or uncertain, WOT blocks navigation by advising you not to continue with a warning which however can be ignored.
When a site is reported in yellow on WOT it means that it is suspicious so you may want more information to know if it should actually be avoided or if in reality it is a secure site.
The online control of Sucuri is also very good, a website that extracts all the technical information about a site, including the links to which it is linked, the javascript codes it uses and the iframes.
Sucuri also says if a domain has been blacklisted for suspicious sites by Google Safe Browsing, Opera or other blacklists
In addition, the free scanner also helps to control shortened urls, those short and difficult to evaluate links, typically found on social networks such as Twitter or Facebook.
Scanurl is yet another online link and website checking tool, which is based on Google Safe Browsing Diagnostic, PhishTank and Web of Trust (WOT) reports.
Similar to SiteAdvisor is Norton SafeWeb which does a scan check on links and internet addresses checking for virus connections.
If threats are found the report is very detailed, with 17 different tests.
Phishtank is an ideal site for checking if a strange site or link is bogus or misleading.
Excellent and of a global nature is the URL Void scanner which instead makes a sum of the judgments of all virus scanners for websites, including WOT and McAfee SiteAdvisor.
If a site is green for all these checks, it is certainly safe and there can be no errors.
These online services are the best defenses against suspicious or dangerous links but they too are not infallible so, as written in the online security guide, the best defense always remains common sense and a dose of caution.
